With the major stock market indexes all entering a bear market this month, it’s no surprise that stocks have stolen most of the spotlight. However, actions taken by the Federal Reserve (Fed) to support what may be considered the safest part of the bond market, US Treasuries, may actually have more lasting implications for investors’ portfolios.

From February 19 through midday March 9, the yield on the 10-year Treasury fell an incredible 125 basis points (1.25%), briefly reaching an all-time low of just 0.31%. In fact, the 14-day relative strength index RSI on the 10-year yield, a technical measure of momentum, was mor

Weekly new jobless claims were reported this morning, and to no one’s surprise they rose to levels thought unimaginable just a few weeks ago. As shown in the LPL Chart of the Day, 3.3 million people filed new claims for unemployment benefits in the week ending March 21, almost 5 times the previous high of 695,000 set in 1982.

“The personal and economic disruptions represented by the latest new claims number are staggering,” said LPL Chief Investment Officer Burt White. “This is a genuine human crisis, and a robust response from the Federal Reserve and Congress seems appropriate. Unfortunately, we do expect

We’ve been monitoring the details in our Road to Recovery Playbook closely over the past few weeks, looking for ways to opportunistically take advantage of the sharp pullback in equity prices. The Playbook has five important factors we are scrutinizing in order to be more aggressive with equity allocations. One of those factors emphasizes whether we believe there are limited sellers remaining. For clarity on that particular factor, we reviewed recent statistics from Morningstar on fund flows, and we found some interesting observations.

As shown in the below chart, investors have acted as if money markets are king, essential

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented volatility in recent weeks that has investors and traders scrambling to assess the economic and market impact of the aggressive containment measures.

This past week the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), which measures the implied 30-day volatility of the S&P 500 Index based on options contracts, measured its highest reading since its inception at over 82—besting the prior high set during the financial crisis in 2008-2009, shown in the chart below. That is saying something.

As market participants have sought shelter from the storm in traditional safe ha